Trust me, it’s paradise. This is where the hungry come to feed. For mine is a generation that circles the globe and searches for something we haven’t tried before.
~Richard, The Beach
The world had turned pink. The soft, rosy hue reflected off the white sand that scraped the bottoms of my feet, and the water that gently lapped against the shoreline. I inhaled a deep breath of salty air as a smile tugged at my lips. This was why we’d really come to Thailand. Bangkok and all of its noise and splendor had been a fun welcome, but the islands and reefs of Southern Thailand were what had actually drawn me and Vince to the Land of Smiles.
Presently, we were watching a perfect, pastel sunrise from a little island called Khai Nai. A speedboat had ferried us here from Phuket under the cover of early morning darkness, all so we could watch the sunrise from a peaceful, mostly empty beach. The only other people around were our tour guides from V. Marine Tour, and a dozen or so other travelers from the small group tour we’d joined. Oh-there were also the cats.
Koh Khai Nai is also known as the Cat Island, the reason for that being that there are approximately 100 stray cats that call the island home. The cats weren’t difficult to find, and they weren’t shy. Everywhere we looked, the sand was dappled with paw prints intermingled with the little trails made by shuffling crabs. An orange cat walked right up to me and started rolling around in the sand by my feet. As Vince and I set out to explore a bit more of the island, we encountered so many identical tuxedo cats that I was beginning to wonder if we’s stumbled into a glitch. Our tour guide, Sea, had instructed us all to avoid touching the cats because they aren’t vaccinated. I did my best to follow these instructions, but there is a limit to my willpower in situations like this. After passing by a few cats, I simply had to dole out some pets.
Vince, meanwhile, climbed over some jagged rocks that bordered the shoreline. By now, we’d wandered far enough to find a little bit of island paradise all to ourselves, our first moment of peace and quiet since leaving home four days earlier. It was a welcome reprieve from all of the trains, planes, and automobiles, and I finally felt like I could slow down and savor the moment.
As I enjoyed the solitude, the sun continued rising ever higher above the horizon, and the sky’s color’s shifted from pinks to blues. Eventually, a member of our boat crew came over to tell us that it was time for breakfast, so Vince and I made our way back toward where the boat was beached.
The crew had set up a spread of muffins, fruits, and coconut sticky rice for us to enjoy. We grabbed a few things and took them over to a pair of beach chairs to enjoy an oceanside breakfast. Once everyone was finished eating, the whole group boarded our boat, and we set sail for Koh Phi Phi Leh.
The Phi Phis are an island group that lies between Phuket and Krabi Province, although they are closer to, and administered by Krabi. The islands are renowned for their beautiful beaches and lagoons, limestone cliffs, and their underwater ecosystem. But the biggest attraction for visitors to the islands is undoubtedly Maya Bay, which is one of the most iconic beaches in Thailand thanks to its prominence in the 2000 adventure movie The Beach. Consequently, Maya Bay was the next stop on our day’s itinerary, and the reason we’d opted to get up at three a.m. for a sunrise tour. Maya Bay is hugely popular, so our choice to go early was an attempt to avoid the larger crowds that would arrive later in the day.
But our boat couldn’t just pull up to the beach. This is because the bay suffered a lot of ecological degradation due to all of the tourism it attracted. So the Thai government shut down the bay from 2018 to 2022, when it was reopened with some much stricter rules in place to protect its coral reef and the sharks that use it as a nursery. Nowadays, the number of visitors is limited, and everyone has to arrive via a dock that was built on the opposite side of Koh Phi Phi Leh. From there, it takes a short walk through a mangrove forest to reach the beach, where swimming is still strictly forbidden.
The boat weaved around a couple of tall limestone islands as we approached the floating dock. One by one, we stepped onto the dock and started walking up a steep staircase that led up to a break in the limestone wall that separated us from the island behind it. The grey rock face shone brightly in the morning sun, and I craned my neck up to look at it as we walked through the gap and onto a boardwalk that led through the mangrove forest.
The trail wasn’t empty by any means, but there was still room for everyone to spread out as we made our way towards one of the world’s most beautiful beaches. After a short time, I could see sunshine breaking through the trees, and the silhouettes of the limestone formations of Maya Bay began to materialize behind the last line of mangroves.
Vince never really cared for The Beach, but I like it a lot, and I found it exciting to get to see the picturesque bay that formed the backdrop for the entire movie. But while Leonardo DiCaprio spent his time here witnessing shark attacks and running from violent pot farmers, we were met with a significantly less psychological experience.
We kicked off our shoes and stepped into the soft sand, joining a small crowd of other visitors who were taking in the beautiful scenery. It was low tide, so we could only dip our toes in the water that morning, in order to protect the fragile corals that are still reforming there.
Contrary to what you might think, I actually liked that swimming wasn’t allowed in Maya Bay. It meant that the landscape stayed natural and beautiful, and the view wasn’t spoiled by boats and people splashing around in the calm water. Several longtail boats that idled out at the entrance to the bay only added to the ambiance instead of blocking the scenery.
Although there were lots of people on the sandy beach already, there was still plenty of space to spread out, and everyone there was calm and quiet. It was as though everyone was so stunned by the brilliant blue water and the protective cliffs that surrounded it, that no one wanted to spoil the beauty of the moment by talking too loudly.
Vince and I decided to walk the length of the beach, and a few minutes into our stroll, Vince grabbed my arm and pointed at the shallow water. Just a few feet away from us, a blacktip reef shark pup glided above rippling sand.
A breath caught in my chest, and I stared at the young shark whose lithe movements were mesmerizing. It seemed to flow, one with the water, as Vince and I reversed course to walk alongside it.
As we watched the shark swim out to deeper water and disappear, the realization dawned on me that this was my very first time seeing a baby shark in the wild. As a shark lover, this was extremely exciting for me, and I quietly raved about it to Vince as we resumed our walk to a shallow cavern on the opposite side of the beach.
Once we reached it, we stopped to admire the gorgeous view one more time, but this time it was framed by dangling limestone formations that hung down over the cavern’s opening.
By now it was almost time for us to meet back up with our tour group back at the dock. So Vince and I walked back along the shoreline, stopping to watch more shark pups along the way, while the caudal fins of mature sharks peaked above the waves further out in the bay. We spent a little too much time shark watching, which necessitated jogging along the boardwalk all the way to dock, but we did manage to get there in time.
Once everyone was back aboard the boat, it was time for a snorkel break. Our captain ferried us a short distance over to a dive site right at the base of one of the island’s towering cliffs. I was more than ready to jump into the warm waters of the Andaman Sea, as the day was already becoming sweltering now that the sun had risen.
I plunged into the turquoise water, and immediately started looking for sea creatures beneath the waves. The first thing I saw was a black and white striped ribbon wriggling over the coral below me. It was a sea krait, a highly venomous, semi-aquatic snake. While their venom is potentially deadly, sea kraits don’t pose much danger in practice because they are very shy and rarely bite humans. So naturally I took in a deep breath of air, and dove down to get a better look at it. This was my first sea krait sighting, and when I got close to it, I noticed that it had an oddly adorable, slightly dopey looking face. I followed it over the reef until I needed to surface for air.
Then I made my way over to the shallow waters near the cliff, where one of our guides pointed out a blacktip reef shark. It gracefully glided past us and disappeared into the distance, only to be replaced by another one. Shark after shark cruised along the rocky sea bed, and I started looking in every direction to try to predict where they were coming from.
We had ample time to continue snorkeling, and most of our group followed the guides around the cliff and out to deeper water where we were surrounded by schools of thousands of tiny fish. There were also SCUBA divers at the site, a premonition of how Vince and I would be spending the next day. And any time we returned to the shallows, the sharks would swim by, one after the other. At one point I counted four of them all swimming in a line.
When an hour or so had passed, we all returned to the boat for another short journey into Phi Leh Lagoon. It would have been impossible to enter it a few hours before, but now the tide had risen enough to allow boats to pass through a narrow and shallow inlet between two tall cliffs. Gray stone fringed with greenery towered above us on either side as we slowly rode into a protected lagoon with the most beautiful aqua water you could could possibly ask for. Our captain stopped the boat, and we were allowed to jump off the bow into the water. Then we had a half hour to swim and keep jumping off the boat if we wanted to. The water was refreshing, and I thought the lagoon was even prettier than Maya Bay.
We dried off back on the boat deck after our swim, and by now it was around lunch time. Lunch would be served over on Koh Phi Phi Don, the largest of the Phi Phi Islands, but there were still a couple of scenic stops to make along the way. The first of these was at Viking Cave, which contrary to what its name would suggest, has nothing to do with Norse vikings. But there are a series of ancient caves paintings inside that 19th century explorers mistook for viking art. Nowadays, visitors can only view the cave from the outside, a rule instated to protect its fragile ecosystem. We could however, still see a large bamboo scaffolding that used to be used in the harvesting of swiflet nests. These nests were used to make birds nest soup, a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, but the cave closure also put an end to nest harvesting.
Not far from Viking Cave, we stopped to see a beach that is known as Monkey Beach thanks to a troop of long-tailed macaques that live there. We got to watch the monkeys rock climbing on the cliff faces for a little bit before it was finally time to head over to Phi Phi Don for lunch.
A row of longtail boats lined the beach as we stepped onto the sand at the Phi Phi Holiday Resort. Their bows were adorned with colorful scarves and flower garlands, which are believed to bring good luck and protection, and are used to honor water spirits. Longboats are an iconic site on Thailand’s waters, so I hung back to snap some pictures of them while everyone else made their way over to a lunch buffet that was set up in a nearby dining pavilion.
When I joined the rest of the group for lunch, Sea had already brought out a tray of vegetarian food for me, and made sure to point out which dishes at the buffet table were also vegetarian. There was more than enough food to fill me up, and I enjoyed lunch as I watched waves lapping against the sandy shoreline.
There was also plenty of time to hang out by the resort’s pool after we were done eating, so Vince and I grabbed a couple of lounge chairs, laughing as a cat wearing a tiny Hawaiian shirt prowled around the pool deck. Vince immediately fell asleep upon lying down in his chair (in his defense, we’d arrived at our hotel at midnight the night before, and were up again at three to get ready for this tour), but I got in the pool to cool off. I swam around for a bit underneath the shade of a fragrant plumeria tree.
It was nice to get to relax for a bit before it was time to start our return journey back to Phuket. Our day trip was almost over, but there was one last stop to make along the way. We pulled up to a sandy beach for the last time that day, and hopped from the boat into the shallow waters surrounding Bamboo Island. Here, we would have more time to snorkel, and Sea told us to lookout for more shark pups in the water.
Vince and I put on our masks and began snorkeling near the shore, keeping our eyes open for sharks. But a few minutes after we got in the water, a ranger started blowing his whistle and yelling for everyone to come back to shore. Apparently there had been a rule change, and everyone was now supposed to swim within a buoyed area and wear life jackets. One look at the swim area, packed with shoulder-to-shoulder tourists bobbing around in bright orange jackets, sent me and Vince walking in the opposite direction. We would oblige the rules, but we would not join a crowd of people packed into a tiny area like sardines.
Instead, we walked the shoreline, admiring our last few views of the Phi Phi Islands (at least for today). The water was calm and tranquil, with only the smallest of waves tickling the shore and flowing around rock formations.
While the views were lovely, this was honestly the most underwhelming stop of the tour. There were simply too many people crammed onto one tiny island, so I wasn’t all that disappointed when it was finally time to return to Phuket. As we sped back to the marina, the crew handed out fresh pomelo fruit and soft drinks. We arrived back at the dock in the late afternoon, and we were both feeling worn out after getting so little sleep the night before.
With that in mind, we decided to spend a relaxed evening at our hotel, Phuket Signature Glamping, where we were staying in a fun glamping igloo. The property was right on the shore, so it had a lovely view of the sea, away from the party life over in Phuket proper. It was low tide again when we arrived, and we spent the afternoon and evening chilling by the infinty pool, petting the hotel cat, and taking a relaxing walk along the shore.
Thousands of tiny crabs scuttled over the tidal flats as kingfishers swooped above the surface of the water. There were also lots of egrets walking through the tide with their spindly, stilt-like legs as they hunted for fish to eat. By now Vince and I were about ready for a meal of our own, so we walked back to the hotel where enjoyed a sunset-view while eating a light dinner.
It had been a full and wonderful first day in the Phuket area. The Phi Phi Islands lived up to their reputation for natural beauty, so I was very happy that we’d be returning to them the next day. But this time, we’d be exploring more of the underwater world of the Phi Phis instead of their beaches and lagoons. As we retired to our tent for the night, I could hardly wait to find out what would be waiting for us underneath the waves the next morning!
You can see more details of this amazing destination on my YouTube channel!
birdsoftheairtravel.com 